In general, an image communication network has two or more so-called “modalities”. The expression “modality” in this case refers to a recording unit, for example an X-ray unit, a computer tomography scanner, etc. for recording data, such as examination image data. Such a unit may include a data processing unit for processing and local storage, for a limited time, of the data, that is to say of the examination image data.
For data interchange, the modalities and data processing units may be connected to one another via a data transmission unit, for example a data bus system or a communication network, the so-called image communication network based on the DICOM standard (DICOM=Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine). The DICOM Standard is an industry standard for the transmission of images and other medical information between computers (=data processing units) to allow the digital communication between recording and diagnosis appliances of different manufacturers.
In branching or networked systems having two or more modalities, it may be necessary to interchange data and/or parameters, in particular image data, operating and/or system parameters, between two or more modalities or imaging medical systems, in particular in order to jointly use or to distribute the data and/or parameters. In this case, the data is interchanged between the various modalities throughout the system.
Since DICOM allows innumerable transmission methods, and the DICOM Standard allows interpretation freedom for the implementation of transmission protocols and data representations, it is possible, despite the use of the DICOM Standard, for so-called connectivity or inter-operability problems to occur (connectivity describes a data link in terms of the transmission capability, data such as image data, patient data etc. being transmitted completely and without being changed, and “inter-operability” describes the compatibility of two applications in two different network subscribers which allow corresponding interpretation of the same data). Even when comparing so-called “DICOM Conformance Statements” of two appliances or modalities (=specification comparison, as to how an appliance implements the DICOM Standard), it is impossible to ensure that the functions or applications will run completely and reliably on the basis of transmitted or interchanged data. In particular, different data and/or parameters, that is to say data and/or parameters with different formats, in particular different types of user data, in particular image data, different operating, communication and/or system parameters, may lead to incompatibilities in data transmission and in data interchange between the individual modalities and data processing units. This may thus necessitate extensive system consultations, reformatting and/or servicing actions in situ.